The present invention is directed to an antenna for electromagnetic radiation and, more particularly, to a novel distributed array antenna which can be retracted into a volume many times smaller than the volume of the fully-expanded array.
It is well known to form an electromagnetic signal into a beam of radiation for various purposes, e.g. communications, object location and the like; in general, the narrower the radiation beam produced by the antenna (to provide a greater proportion of the radiated power to a specific remote location), the larger the size of the beam-forming antenna. It is often possible to locate a large antenna at a location to which it is impossible to transport the antenna in unitary fashion; some means for forming the final-sized antenna from smaller components is the usual solution to such a transportation problem. However, there are situations where coupling of a plurality of components by human intervention is either not possible or is prohibitive for some reason. In such a situation, it is highly desirable to be able to collapse an antenna into a smaller-than-final volume for transport, and to then deploy the antenna into useable condition at the final location without human intervention. This facility is especially desirable for large distributed array antennae.